


Nice to Meet You

by thedi_WRECK_tor



Series: The Man Formerly Known As Casalt [1]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship, Found Family, Gen, Identity Issues, This is the first thing I've written in literal years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:34:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22412566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedi_WRECK_tor/pseuds/thedi_WRECK_tor
Summary: She tells him he has to be the captain now, that he has to take the name of the squished guy. Outside, the soldiers waylay him, threatening a steep fine for illegally parking his ship.He panics."I'm a ship safety inspector."
Series: The Man Formerly Known As Casalt [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1625950
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31





	Nice to Meet You

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I'm still alive, still kicking around. Got the game for Christmas, and now here we are: a self indulgent little ditty. But it's been literal years since I posted anything so this is an accomplishment for me. Enjoy!

He falls from the sky with a colony ship full of questions a splitting headache, and a case of full-blown identity crisis thanks to his extended cryosleep.

His momma always told him he didn't have a lick of sense in his pretty head, but he's got enough sense in him to know that right now, his only hope for survival is the wild-eyed old man babbling away in his ear. Phineas drops him on some poor bastards head, right in the middle of marauder territory, and all he can do is go along with it until things start to make sense. He patches up a kid in a cave, borrows his gun, and through his usual amount of pure, dumb luck, makes it to the ship belonging to the guy he squished in time to rescue a pair of bureaucratic soldiers from more marauders.

The ship is alive. Or, there's a lady in a screen controlling the ship, and she's alive. She tells him he has to be the captain now, that he has to take the name of the squished guy.

Outside, the soldiers waylay him, threatening a steep fine for illegally parking his ship. 

He panics.

"I'm a ship safety inspector."

Lying has always come just as naturally to him as the truth, so he’s relieved but not surprised when the lieutenant bus his bullshit. He is surprised when she tells him to inform her supervisor of her infraction, but he forgets about it as soon as he sets off into the foothills in the direction she’s pointed. Dealing with whatever fine she places on the ship is for later.

A dirt-covered man stops him before he reaches town. Introduces himself as Silas.

Once again, he panics.

“I’m a botanist.”

He’s lucky Silas doesn’t know what that means, nor do the two guards standing sentinel apparently, so he doesn’t have to try and explain himself. He crosses the bridge into town, and over the next three weeks he finds himself running back and forth between the own and a camp full of deserters, trying to make peace. He helps out around town: snatching rare medicine out from under the noses of violent squatters at the old community center, fixing the faulty nav systems of a very confused scout bot, rescuing an over-eager nerd from the midst of a marauder horde and returning her home. He brings the town mechanic along with him, gets to know her; Her name is Parvati Holcomb and she’s the best friend he’s ever had. They get on like a sprat in a junkyard.

She asks him what his name is, and he tells her the truth: he’s a colonist from the Hope and he needs that power regulator to save his fellow passengers.

They meet the town Vicar, a severe gentleman who sends them off to retrieve a forbidden book in a near-dead language. He invites himself to come along with them, and at this point, the stranger figures he can use all the friends he can find. 

They talk. They debate. They argue. In the end, they make a decision. 

Adelaide is furious. She says she knows who the stranger really is now.

He’s a snake.

That hurts, but he supposes it’s fair. He reasons with her, promises to make it as right as he can, and they head back to town to tell Reed Tobson to take a hike. He agrees; it’s for the best. Adelaide and the rest of the deserters return to the town, and the stranger takes their power regulator back to the ship. They spend another few days in town, helping the deserters dismantle and transport the lab back to the cannery. There’s bound to be backlash from the all-powerful Board, but the stranger can’t worry about that now: he has a mission.

ADA integrates the new power regulator into the ship’s systems, and the stranger invites Parvati to come along with him; she’s stunted in this backwater, plague-riddled town. Thomas Kemp has his instruction manuals now: he’ll never be as good as Parvati, but the town is not without a pair of capable hands. He invites her along, and she excitedly refers to him as Captain. When the vicar arrives later that day, he gives the stranger a gentle nod as he passes by. “Captain.”

Parvati claims the engine room as her happy place. She and ADA become fast friends. The vicar retreats to his claimed quarters and spends all his time pouring over his texts and Bakonu’s indecipherable journal, as if he’ll learn to decode the language if he just re-reads it enough. 

“Well, Captain.” ADA asks him as he takes a seat in a dead man’s command chair. “Where to next?”

He takes them to the Groundbreaker, and flashes back, back to the beginning. The Groundbreaker, the first colony ship. Remembers being a child, watching the launch on TV with the whole neighborhood crammed into his parents’ living room. He leads his crew up to the customs agent, a placid smile on his face, trying to look like he belongs. When the agent asks him his identification, he only hesitates for a moment before handing over the ident card ADA had given him

“I’m Alex Hawthorne, captain of the Unreliable.”

“According to your ship’s record, you’ve been flagged by the Board. Your ship will be impounded until such a time as they see fit to lift it.”

“...Oh.”


End file.
